There are many clinics, hospitals and doctor's offices in which successive patients have their blood pressure taken. Conventional methods of blood pressure taking involve the utilization of sphygmomanometers which are encircled and anchored about a patient's limb and then inflated. This practice of blood pressure taking has been carried out for many years and is still the accepted method, other than more sophisticated methods which are available and used for constant blood pressure monitoring of critically ill patients.
When a patient enters a clinic, hospital or doctor's office for a specific complaint, the major concern of the attending doctor or nurse is the patient's stated complaint. However, such a person may have a communicable illness of which he or she is unaware and the usual practice of taking the blood pressure of substantially all patients can result in a communicable illness being inadvertently transmitted from one patient to another as a result of successive contact with such patients by a sphygmomanometer cuff.
Accordingly, a need exists for means by which the transfer of a communicable illness between patients upon which a sphygmomanometer cuff is successively placed may be eliminated, or at least substantially reduced.
To this end the instant invention has been developed and comprises an inexpensive disposal and flexible envelope into which a sphygmomanometer cuff, bulb-type pump and gauge may be inserted prior to the sphygmomanometer cuff being placed about the limb of a patient whose blood pressure is to be taken. The envelope includes one openable side through which the sphygomomanometer cuff may be inserted and removed and that openable side is provided with closure structure whereby it may be temporarily closed.
Examples of protective covers of various types for sphygmomanometer cuffs and other structures are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,758,593, 3,606,880, 3,757,772, 4,197,944 and 4,222,391.